When Silvia Venturini Fendi speaks about her most famous creation, the Fendi Baguette bag, she knows it embodies something so elusive in fashion she doesn’t think she’ll see it again. “Creating an icon, not just something that’s considered an It bag, is like doing alchemy and is something that only happens once in a lifetime,” she says of the perfect collision of timing, social temperature and exceptional design that birthed the envelope-style bag in 1997.
Not trying to recreate that impossible collision of forces, instead honouring them, is the special Fendi collection for resort ’23, imagined as the Baguette’s 25th anniversary celebration and held in New York, rather than the brand’s usual European backdrop for shows.
Reflected there, more than kismet, was the hard work of current creative director Kim Jones, who is adding his own chapter to the other icon that is the Roman house of Fendi. Since his appointment in 2020, he’s quickly making a mark as master collaborator.
